HIST 262 Keywords - Final

Fall 2025

Ming Sea Ban

A 1371-1567 policy created by Zhu Yuanzhang (1st Ming emp.) that forbade sailing overseas without an official permit

• HEAVILY minimized foreign trade, foreigners could only trade in China under strict supervision (tributary system)

• Hard to enforce, so really only enforced for 30 years

  • Zhu Di (3rd emperor) stopped enforcing in 1403, enlisted Japan’s help to crack down on wako piracy in return for freer trade

• Goals: minimizing foreign influences, protect China from wako by starving them out

• Effects: alienated Chinese merchants, increased smuggling + wako power, eroded gvt. control of coastal areas

• SIGNIFICANCE: More isolationist, trade restrictions meant less contact with outside world, bolstered smuggling

Ningbo Incident

A 1523 fight between the Japanese Ouchi and Hosokawa clans in Ningbo, the tributary port for Japan, over the rights to trade with China

• Hosakawa clan bribes local officials and engages in trade without sending a delegation to the emperor (+ using expired permission slip). Ouchi clan kills Hosokawa leader and plunders the port, leading to their expulsion, the closing of Ningbo, and the cessation of trade with Japan

• Japanese central government supposed to decide who gets to send ships to China, but the Warring States Period (1467-1600) meant the shogun had very little control

• SIGNIFICANCE: More isolationist, further trade restrictions

Shuangyu

One of the most notable Chinese/Japanese smuggling ports during the pirate-merchant era of 1523-66 (Liuheng Island)

• Was a seasonal trade outpost around 1526, temporary sheds

• Becomes a year-round trade outpost around 1540, serves as headquarters for the Xu brothers syndicate

• Used by Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese

• 1543 Ming naval attack repulsed

• 1544 Wang Zhi joins Xu syndicate at Shuangyu

• 1548 At least 600 wako living on the island

• 1548 Ming naval attack succeeds, sinking 27 wako ships

  • Render harbor unusable

• SIGNIFICANCE: Major cultural exchange, established piracy base + syndicates, Ming emperor crackdown

Oda Nobunaga

A mid-16th-century Japanese daimyo who utilized matchlock weaponry to unify Japan, eventually enabling his successors to found the Tokugawa Shogunate

• Pioneered serial firing techniques

• SIGNIFICANCE: Cultural exchange triggered unification/major military shift

Frederick Philipse

One of the wealthiest merchants in NYC, unscrupulous, works with Adam Baldridge

• Reaches an agreement to trade Malagasy slaves for supplies Baldridge can sell to passing ships

• 1693 — Supplies from Philipse arrive, not exactly what Baldridge wanted but still helpful. Baldridge sends cattle, $$, and SOME slaves but nowhere near the promised 200

  • Philipse angry but continues (potentially profitable) relationship

• SIGNIFICANCE: Merchants aiding/abetting pirates

Thomas Tew

A Rhode Island sea captain & major innovator in pirate history

• Given a ship by some Bermuda merchants & the governor to become a privateer attacking the French in 1692 (they get a cut)

• Decides to attack Mughal empire instead of French ships in 1693

  • Violating LoM, very long way, never been there, don’t know how to find ships, don’t know how well defended Mughal ships will be

• Attacked Red Sea chokepoint, captured ~$125,000 of gold, silver and ivory ($1,200 per man)

• The route Tew took from the Americas around Africa to the Red or Arabian Sea became known as The Pirate Round, attracted many imitators

• SIGNIFICANCE: Popularizes Red Sea chokepoint attacks, major pain for the Mughal Empire, TPR

Lord Bellomont

The governor of New York in 1699

• Board of Trade tells him to prosecute Baldridge, Bellomont explains that the judicial system is horribly corrupt and pro-pirate and that any attempt to prosecute Baldridge would be hopeless

• Arrests Captain Kidd in 1699, lures him on shore by promising not to arrest him (and then does)

• SIGNIFICANCE: Arrests Captain Kidd, areas were still pro-pirate prior to early 1700s

The Adventure Galley

Captain Kidd’s ship, given to him in 1696 by the English government to hunt down Indian Ocean pirates (+ LoM)

• Called a galley but was notably bigger than a traditionally galley + had sails

  • Slower than typical galley when rowing, but faster than every other ship if there was no wind

• SIGNIFICANCE: Innovative?

Emperor Aurangzeb

Mughal Emperor from 1618-1707, great-grandson of Akbar the Great

• Blames English East India Company for Every capturing his ship in 1695 (Every’s letter labeling himself an “Englishman’s friend” really doesn’t help)

  • Imprisons 71 officials

  • Demands $325,000 in restitution

• 5 of Every’s men executed for piracy in London (1696) because they want to appease Aurangzeb

• SIGNIFICANCE: Impact of piracy on Mughal empire, London/European states cracking down on pirates

Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy

A 1700 anti-pirate law that allowed the English crown to set up admiralty courts to try pirates anywhere outside GB

• Monarch could give a commission to any three men, as long as one held a meaningful rank (gov/l-gov, naval captain)

• The three original men would appoint 4+ other reputable men to serve as judges, could give death sentence without a jury with a 4/7 vote

• Angered colonists, felt like they were being stripped of rights/treated like second class citizens

• SIGNIFICANCE: Sign that states are really beginning to crack down on piracy

John Quelch

An English pirate captain who was the first pirate to be executed through TAFTMESOP

• Captain of the Charles, an English ship given LoMs by the governor of Massachusetts (Dudley) in 1703 following the War of the Spanish Succession

• Attacked 9 Portuguese ships and got $15,000, LoM only covered Spanish & French

• Returned to Massachusetts expecting to receive a hero’s welcome, instead got prosecuted

• Crew prosecuted by an admiralty court, most escaped but 25 were put on trial in 1704

  • Many people were against the prosecution, felt like judicial abuse of authority

  • Some supported it, wanted a crackdown

• 20 pirates convicted, 6 executed, 13 pardoned, 1 escaped

• SIGNIFICANCE: Sign that states are really beginning to crack down on piracy

Queen Anne’s Revenge

Blackbeard’s flagship, captured by him & Bonnet in 1717

• A reference to the belief that the English monarch was illegitimate, therefore his punishing of piracy was illegitimate

• SIGNIFICANCE: Pirate justification?

Woodes Rogers

A former privateer who was appointed governor of the Bahamas in 1717, the same year it was turned into a royal colony by the English crown

• Cracked down HEAVILY on piracy, captured pirates via force and convinced many to take royal pardon

• Executes 8 pirates on the Nassau beach on 1718

• SIGNIFICANCE: Sign that states are really beginning to crack down on piracy

John Rackam

The captain of the William, a ship he stole with Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and 12 other men, who was executed in 1720

• Was pardoned but then returned to piracy in 1720, led to his execution

• September - October 1720 — Group attacks several other ships, earning $1,330

• November 1720 — Rackam and four other men tried for piracy (16-17) and executed (18). Anne Bonny and Mary Read were convicted later (28) and sentenced to death but had their sentences stayed

• SIGNIFICANCE: Piracy dying out, states cracking down

The Battle of Ocracoke Inlet (North Carolina)

A battle between Lieutenant Robert Maynard and Blackbeard in 1718 that results in Blackbeard’s death

• 2 ships, the Jane and the Ranger, were sent by Acting Governor of Virginia Alexander Spotswood

• Of Maynard’s forces, 11 men were killed and 23 wounded; of Blackbeard’s forces, 10 were killed (including Blackbeard himself) and 9 were wounded

• SIGNIFICANCE: Piracy dying out, states cracking down